It was brought up on another board I frequent and I thought I would bring it up here to see if anyone had thoughts on this.

In years from now do you think the console will still be around or do you think we will make the break and go PC all the way or will it be the other way around?

I haven't really researched/thought about this much, but my initial thoughts are that the two will 'merge' to some extent.

I think you are more likely to see the PC go to the wayside in that the consoles will eventually allow just about everything that's done on the current PC to be done on one's tv just about as effectively as on a computer monitor. If you look at the power of the Xbox 360 and the specs for the PS3, you will see that it's already a great possibility, and one that Microsoft is striving for with their new Xbox.

Yeah, I agree. Although, even just with regards to gaming, PC's have the advantage of being adaptable and non-proprietary, so I think they'll hold their ground pretty well.

console game sales are on the rise and pc is on the decline.

I like my console *pats his ps2* but even the Xbox 360 can touch my PC when it comes to gaming power. However, I believe you can use an Xbox 360 as a media center extender, I know you can if you buy some stuff for the original xbox. If that is so, I will definitely be getting one.

"console game sales are on the rise and pc is on the decline"

And yet, the most successful video game of all time released for the PC only. Curious. I don't expect PCs to go away any time soon simply because there's so much more than gaming they do. To quote Alton Brown, "but thats a uni-tasker, and there's no room for a uni-tasker in my..." well he said kitchen but you get the idea. I like watching TV and playing video games simultaneously, can't do that on an X-Box :)

(but I do enjoy my XBox!)

I like watching TV and playing video games simultaneously, can't do that on an X-Box
I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure they'll let you buy another display without buying a computer.

Gaming is headed to the consoles. The prevalence of voice chat and speech to text will eventually replace any unique advantage PCs have over consoles. As sales drop off for PC games, there's going to be a breakpoint where things quickly go down the tubes.

I've owned a few Amigas and saw that process happen first hand. They quickly went from the best gaming platform available, with developers making Amiga specific games and ports of every game in the world, to having no new software available at all.

It wasn't that the Amiga got any worse or even that it stopped improving. The problem was there were millions more PCs out there and it just made no financial sense to devote time to the more limited Amiga platform.

Consoles are currently right in the middle of that process of saturating the market with hardware. I wouldn't be surprised if the same Amiga scenario plays out for PC gaming.

And yet, the most successful video game of all time released for the PC only.

If you ignore the other 12 games above it sales wise, which were all console games.
"The Sims" needed to combine the sales of all its expansions to even begin to touch the might of the top console games sales wise.
(Which, for the record, are Mario Brothers 1, 2 and 3, with 18-40million units sold each).

No doubt its the most successful *PC* game of all time, but its nowhere close to touching the best console games sales wise, and isn't even the best selling franchise.

I've debated this topic to death in the past, suffice to say, PC gaming is not going to die, but it is going to go progressively more indie as time advances.

Theres only a few real reason games get developed for the PC, one is because of licensing fees, i.e. there are none.
Its a promising platform for smaller developers because they can just make a game and release it based almost solely on labor. Theres no real investment needed to get started other then having a PC(and the knowledge, obviously).

With consoles, not only do you need permission to release games, you have to drop almost a mil out the gate to even get the "Privledge" to submit your games to one of the big three for approval/rejection, SDKs, fees, etc.

PC gaming will go on a slow decline , the decline will start to ramp up in the future though because the other major factor of why PC gaming has survived.Power.
PC gaming has a huge sub-community of power, modding, overclocking nuts similar to custom cars and street racing.

The differance is you don't get a guy who comes into your garage and can *legitimatley* brag about how his $399 used 74 yugo beats the shit out of your porche.

Thats what PC gaming is going through right now, the mass market consoles have "Real World" power that will rival/surpass even the best PCs until the next generation.
(A large argument here is Optimization , which I won't go into *too* much detail, but power unit+standard hardware means that consoles can perform way beyond thier "Specs" when compared to PC games that can't be optomized because they have to run on thousands of pieces of varying hardware).

In conclusion you'll probably see almost all the big-names in the PC industry moving to consoles this generation as a main or at least major development source.

You'll see more "Indie" type games cropping up on PC because its still the only open platform, and once they're successful, they'll probably move onto consoles.

All the major reasons in the past for PC over console gaming is blurring , or going away.
If your company can afford the license fees and process, its just sound finanscial choice to go with platforms with larger user bases, ease of use, and lower barriers of entry(price).

PC gaming will always have a market to sell to. Until a console starts shipping with a mouse and keyboard, there are many people that will never play a FPS on a console, and it's nearly impossible to make a RTS with any depth work with a controller. There's also the issue of viewing. A TV Monitor is typically used by more than one person to watch TV, a computer and monitor is a single person affair, so nobody else is inconvienced if you want to play a game.

There was an intersting article in CPU a few months ago about how a console can do more with less than a PC because the operating system for a PC (windows) has gotten way too fat trying to do everything anyone might want.

Tried to google it and didn't find it.

IMO: For gamers and such, consoles will take over more market in the future. The PC will be there, but more for us folks that do more than check email, surf the web, and play games.

Sure, the console is more powerful now, but what about in the next year or so when newer PC upgrades are available? Consoles aren't usually upgraded till a newer and better one comes along, and that's usually every 3-5 years i think. The PC is adaptable as someone mentioned, while for the most part the console is not. And if you do add mouses, keyboards and the like, that console will be basically a PC.
They both have their niches, and i think both will be around for quite awhile yet imho....:p
As someone mentioned, the console can't hold a candle to a PC for first person shooters in most cases.

Sure, the console is more powerful now, but what about in the next year or so when newer PC upgrades are available?

I mentioned that in the optimization part, consoles can perform way beyond thier specs because of far more efficent code(in general).

We're not gonna see any PCs that can run a console port better then the console for awhile.
Paper Specs =/= Real world performance.

I think you are more likely to see the PC go to the wayside in that the consoles will eventually allow just about everything that's done on the current PC to be done on one's tv just about as effectively as on a computer monitor. If you look at the power of the Xbox 360 and the specs for the PS3, you will see that it's already a great possibility, and one that Microsoft is striving for with their new Xbox.

People have been saying the exact same thing since the SNES came out or earlier. It's a constant cycle. In a year or two, PC's will have prettier graphics again. Until the next system, then it happens all over again.

People have been saying the exact same thing since the SNES came out or earlier. It's a constant cycle. In a year or two, PC's will have prettier graphics again. Until the next system, then it happens all over again.

Aye, but the thing is, with each generation, that gap between consoles and PCs keeps getting smaller and smaller, until here we are today, the first generation that has consoles significantly more powerful then PCs.

Theres other factors to look at as well, like PCs over the past 5 years or so have been seeing diminishing returns.

I remember when we went from 100mhz Penitums to 3ghz Pentium4s almost instantly over a few years, and now a processor I bought 4 years ago(3.2)[edit: Originally said 4, I actually checked when I bought it, its actually about 3, and 3200 XP, not actually 3.2ghz, confused myself slightly, corrected, rest of point still stands] is still about as fast as they get.
We've seen large strides in the GPU fields and Hard-drives, buses, and other architechture to help increase over-all performance.
But we're slowly bridging that gap as well, we're currently at a point where our manufacturing processes and knowledge are severely limiting our ability to advance in consumer level computing power(i.e. a single unit, as opposed to clusters).

In the end this is gonna just be a business descion made by accountants, consoles have the larger user base with significantly less reason *not* to develop for them in the past. More potential customers equals more money.
The "Last great barrier" for consoles is user input, and with the PS3 offering full KBM support for games and systems like the revolution offering input methods that rival them, the last bastions of the PC(the FPS and the RTS) will inevitably start to make thier switch to consoles.

Once this happens, again, accountants, will start comparing PC sales vs Console sales, and inevitably, PC porting will be one of the first expenses hacked if the sales trends continue as they do.
(Alot of companies already consider PC ports to be an unnesseccary expense, since very few actually turn a significant profit over thier cost)

PCs are never gonna die out for reasons I already mentioned, but I don't see them getting the support they do now(which is already much less then it was just 10 years ago, I simply see the trend continueing).

(I specifically avoid mentioning the 360, Microsoft has a vested interest in keeping PC gaming and console gaming seperate but thriving, they've already shot themselves in the foot over it, something both thier competitors will lord over them this gen)

a processor I bought 4 years ago(3.2) is still about as fast as they get.
If you bought a 3.2ghz chip in 2001, I wanna know who you know.

Nothing will replace my keyboard/mouse for mmos,fps and rts games, ever.
I like playin SOME kind of games on a console, (prince of persia kind/racing/sports) but other than that the pc controls owns consoles anytime.